To really like garages where they fill up your car with fuel whilst you wait?

[Susanjeffery1984]

Our Shell garage has a few people employed to fill up your car whilst you wait. The fuel is a couple of pence more but I don’t mind. There’s no risk of getting smelly diesel on your paws and you can have a nice chat with someone, or start queuing if you are in a rush.
It used to be more common but I can’t think of any other garages where they still do this, which is a shame.

I know of one local garage that does this still. I feel embarrassed not to do it myself though.

When I was small in the 90’s there was a tiny petrol station in a nearby town that filled up for you. My dad used them all the time and would get out and have a chat with the man. I think he knew him. Then he would go in and buy his cigarettes and pay for the petrol at the counter while the man finished filling the tank.

This used to be standard in NZ and still happens in some small towns I found. What I really live about NZ petrol pumps though is the little lever you can click forward which keeps the pump engaged so you don't have keep squeezing it - saves a lot of hand cramp. Why do they never work in the UK?

they have this here.
i hate it.
i also hate it when you park and they stand there staring at you while you're getting yourself ready to get out of the car

They have this at a Shell garage near me (Edinburgh).

One of our local stations (major chain) has introduced a guy on the forecourt a few days a week. You can go to him or self serve. I go to him because he’s a lovely man. He says he has loads of customers with things like arthritis, rheumatism etc who find it hard to depress the nozzle for an extended period, also general mobility issues or things like forgetting reading glasses and can’t read the pump. I’d never thought of any of this before. On Sundays you can’t get near him with his huge queue of elderly drivers.

I was reading about this fairly recently. There's a state (or maybe 2) in US where it's illegal to pump your own. They are considering scrapping the law and people are up in arms about it, how dirty and dangerous it is to do it yourself.

To be honest, I wouldn't mind it that much, I always come away with diesel hands afterwards. I wouldn't go out of my way to find a petrol station that does it, or indeed pay any extra for it.

When I lived in Surrey my nearest petrol station was a v small independently ownd operation. The chap always came out to do the petrol for me and chat about the weather and traffic

Yep standard in the Middle East - as is filling up with the engine still running so your aircon stays on (in 50° heat this is necessary!)
Also someone will rush over and put air in your tyres if you start doing it yourself.

And you get you bags packed at supermarkets, and the trolley taken to the car for you if you feel particularly feeble.

It's a rude awakening coming back to the UK!

Mind. Blown.

I have never heard of this. I’m 50. No car in the family as a child but I’ve driven since age 21.

What do you do while they’re filling it? What if they put in more than you can afford?

UNDERCOVERBANANA you tell them what you want before they start, i.e. £20 of Diesel please

It used to be standard here in Ohio when I was little, but not anymore. Some states still do it. In fact, it was in the news a few months ago that the state of Oregon switched from full service to self service pumps, and people were freaking out. There were people on the news taking about how the average person didn't have the proper training to pump gas.